Then he mumbled a few incoherent words, because suddenly Louisa was sitting up.
“Martin?” Her voice was soft and calm.
His only answer was a kind of moan.
Again, she who had been his betrothed called to him lovingly, and he hesitated, alternately shrinking away from her and then starting forward.
When the young woman’s red lips parted and I saw clearly her white fangs suddenly grown sharp, I moved between her and the man she had once planned to marry, to keep them from embracing.
Louisa, reacting to my interference and Martin’s acceptance of it, gave a little snarling cry and suddenly leaped out of the crude nest in which she had sheltered from the daylight, so that both Holmes and I recoiled, and I reached for my revolver. but the vampire, who was still Louisa Altamont, had no aggressive intention. In another moment she had fled from our presence into the gathering dusk, thereby relieving us of any need to make an immediate decision on what we had ought to do with her, or do about her.
The figure of the girl did not change form, but ran barefoot at amazing speed into the nearby trees, and disappeared.
We had followed her out of the building again. Armstrong, speechless, with one hand to his mouth, could only stare after her, on his face the wildest expression of terror and shock that I have ever seen.
Now that the sun was gone, it was imperative that we conduct a strategic retreat, lest our enemy vampire appear and destroy us all at his leisure. Once night had fallen, granting our enemy the power of changing forms at will, my chances of getting in a good shot with the wooden bullets would be reduced almost to nothing.
Armstrong, in a daze, made no objection as we urged him to come away. Nor did any of us have much to say as we walked briskly back to the place beyond the fence where we had left our carriage.
Driving back to Amberley as twilight deepened and faded into night, we stopped to light our carriage lamps, and Armstrong suddenly began to talk.
The burden of his conversation was that of course such things, outside the settled and scientific order of nature, were simply not possible. Certainly not now, with the world firmly established in modern times, the twentieth century well begun. And’demonic’ hardly seemed the proper word for the female who had come to his bed last night. Pagan and passionate, he thought, were apt descriptions.
Holmes was musing that the testimony of the victim herself now definitely indicated that she was the victim of a rapist.
And I, Watson, remarked indignantly that what was known of the girl’s history and of her family made any other explanation unlikely.
Holmes said it was almost certain that the vampire who had kidnapped him must be the same one who had so brutally and lustfully attacked Louisa.
It was, of course, fully dark by the time we returned to the Saracen’s Head. There we found our colleague Dracula fully awake, well rested, and waiting for us in our sitting room.
The mere fact that Dracula was sitting with a companion, engaged in quiet conversation, would have been surprising enough–but when that companion looked round and revealed himself to be Mycroft Holmes, our amazement knew no bounds.
“Calm yourself, Sherlock,” said Mycroft, starting from his chair. “The prince and I have introduced ourselves and reached an accommodation– it was necessary, you know, that we should.”
Never have I seen Holmes so at a loss for words as he was then. but in a few moments, he had recovered from the shock, at least so far as to be able to bid his brother welcome.
When we were all seated, Mycroft Holmes explained that he had found himself unable to remain away from the scene of action any longer.
Taking a deep breath of air, he looked toward the window open to the summer night. “It is years since I have been in the country.” but having done as much, he thereafter seemed indifferent to his location.
Mycroft had brought word from London concerning the connection of the Altamont family with pirates in the eighteenth century. Also, he had obtained historical confirmation of the fact that the family fortune had always derived chiefly from land holdings and that none of the strange events of 1765–at least some of which he had uncovered– had had any noticeable effect on it one way or another.
In fact, a transcript of the Admiralty trial of the pirate Kulakov had turned out to be available, and Mycroft had brought a copy of the relevant portions with him.
We marveled that Kulakov, in his sleepwalking indifference to what his enemies might do, was still using his own name in the society of 1903.
Mycroft remarked: “Well, this much seems to be true–if there was any actual treasure involved, and the Admiralty records seem to suggest there was, the loot was never recovered.”
Mycroft had also brought with him more details of Count Kulakov’s rented establishment, Smithbury Hall, which we had already inspected from a distance, and he confirmed that the police were starting to take an interest there. Two plainclothes policemen, calling at the door on some pretext, had been told by the man’s servants that he was not at home and they did not know when he was to be expected.
Holmes was more and more intently focusing on the Russian aspect of this affair. “Prince, if you thought that some member of this English family, or any other, had robbed you, at some relatively remote epoch in the past, what steps would you be likely to take to regain your property?”
The prince, sitting with one pale hand extended before him, appeared to be admiring his own sharp fingernails. Suddenly, out of nowhere, it occurred to me to wonder whether they might be retractable, like a cat’s claws, and I shuddered slightly.
He flexed his fingers briskly and then forgot about them. “That would depend to a great extent upon what kind of property it was.”
“Of course. Land would be very difficult to regain by anyone striving for justice–as I presume you would be– outside the formal channels of legality. Gold, for example, or anything that can be locked up in a small space, would be comparatively easy.”
Dracula, when he had heard the tale of our discovery of Louisa Altamont, was confident of his ability to overtake this little child-vampire in hot pursuit, catch her and bring her back. but he was not sanguine about his chances of discovering where she might be now.
“Why did Louisa flee from us?” Armstrong asked the question.
Dracula replied that she gave every evidence of being under some very strong hypnotic influence, strong enough to overcome her natural inclinations.
I then asked: “Even in this–altered state, she is subject to the hypnotic influence?”
The prince replied: “Indeed, even more thoroughly, strongly subject to such influence; given a mesmerist–or a hypnotist, if you prefer that word–of overwhelming willpower and superb technique.”
How were we to find Louisa again? And, when she was found, what to do with her, her pallid form, her bloodstained lips?
A little later that night, when Armstrong had retired and was trying to close his eyes in sleep, Louisa drifted in uninvited through the window of his room and, as on the previous night, materialized sitting on the edge of his bed.
The idea of trying to resist her attraction crossed the young man’s mind, but only briefly. The attempt failed before it had really started, and the couple passionately made love.
This did nothing to resolve Armstrong’s feelings. He found himself sliding inexorably into a crisis of doubt, fear, and hesitation regarding his relationship with his beloved.
While the sensual attraction between the pair was, if anything, stronger than on the previous night, the young man’s feelings of revulsion had also increased to the point where they could no longer be denied. He realized, with the night’s first surge of passion spent, that these contrary emotions must be either wholeheartedly accepted, or overcome.
